Federal Department of Economic Affairs,
Education and Research EAER
State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO
SECO – Economic Cooperation and Development
SECO Approach to
Partnering with the Private Sector
Table of contents
Introduction3
1. Why partnering with private sector?
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2. How do we work?
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3. Who are SECO partners?
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4. What have we done?
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5. Moving forward
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SECO Approach to Partnering with the Private Sector
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Introduction
n The international community is increasingly looking to
the private sector as a partner in achieving development
objectives. Scarce public financial resources, complex
development challenges and entrenched poverty has led
to the realisation that private actors may play a greater
role. Important international milestones include the
Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (2011),
which recommended broadening the partnership
between donors and the business sector. More recently,
the reports of the High-Level Panel and of the Open
Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (post2015) recognised that complex global problems will be
better addressed through partnerships involving governments, civil society, the business community, academia
and private philanthropy.
SECO1 has long recognised the critical role of the private
sector in ensuring a sustainable development path. In the
mid-1990s, the FOFEA (today SECO) launched the first
pilot projects to support the private sector and experimented with new guarantee instruments and new procedures to construct and operate infrastructure projects.
The fifth credit facility of 1996 brought a sweeping new
direction for economic and trade-policy measures, especially with the creation of organisations such as SIPPO
enshrining a close collaboration with the private sector.
This allowed SECO to test innovative solutions and build
its unique expertise. The recent 2013-2016 Message on
Switzerland’s International Cooperation focuses on the
need to build on this expertise and scale up innovative
partnering modalities with the private sector.
This positioning paper clarifies SECO’s position in partnering with the private sector. It outlines SECO’s objectives as well as the principles governing these collaborative arrangements. Following a description of SECO’s
experience, it proposes some ways to be further explored
to harness the opportunities of such partnering.
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Definition
There is no internationally agreed definition of
partnering with the private sector, nor even clear
agreement on the term itself. For SECO, partnering with the private sector is a collaborative arrangement between public-sector
and private-sector actors, with a common
objective and shared costs or risks.2 The
private sector is understood to mean private companies or business associations. A collaborative
arrangement can range from a Memorandum of
Understanding to a commercial contract.
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have been used
since the 1990s to cover contractual agreements
under which the private sector delivers an infrastructure product or service and bears certain risks.
Such contracts fall under the definition of partnering with the private sector.
It should be noted that:
nPartnering with the private sector is different from private sector development
(PSD), which is a thematic focus of SECO. PSD
focuses on supporting the local private sector
by improving the framework conditions for
business or strengthening entrepreneurial skills
in partner countries.
nPartnering with the private sector does not
cover contractual arrangements under which a
private firm is contracted to implement a
development project on behalf of a donor
agency without sharing any costs or risks.
In this paper, “SECO” is used to refer to the Economic Cooperation and Development Division (WE) of SECO.
The SDC defines partnerships with the private sector or PPDP (Private Public Development Partnerships) as an alliance with a
private actor that establishes mutual obligations. Each partner defends its specific interests while sharing a set of agreed
values. Such alliances create a positive impact at the social, environmental and/or economic levels.
SECO Approach to Partnering with the Private Sector
1. Why partnering with the private sector?
nIn line with the current international debate and
based on its experience, SECO recognises the fundamental role played by the private sector in contributing
to sustainable growth and the ultimate goal of poverty
reduction. SECO is actively partnering with the private
sector to better achieve its development objectives.
In other words, partnering is not an objective
in itself but a means of reaching an end, i.e. sustainable growth leading to reduction of poverty
and disparities.
SECO’s partnering with the private sector is motivated
by several drivers:3
n Sharing of information and knowledge for
joint solutions: Large-scale global, regional or sectoral challenges may best be met by exchanging and
disseminating ideas and solutions among aid agencies, private firms as well as NGOs, universities and
others. The involvement of several actors allows the
solutions to gain greater legitimacy than a partnership limited to public institutions and private companies. SECO plays a facilitator role, contributing to the
effective organisation of such collective solutions.
n Influencing the behaviour of enterprises:
Through their activities, enterprises may impact upon
people’s lives and the delivery of public goods. By
encouraging positive business practices, SECO aims
to reduce negative externalities or to catalyse the
positive effects of private-sector activities.
some of their own resources. This provides opportunities for SECO to engage with private companies so
as to either leverage additional financial resources or
mobilise their specific expertise and know-how.
n Linking businesses: Based on the assumption that
companies lack the information or capacity to benefit
from trade or investment opportunities, linking companies of developed and developing countries helps
to promote economic growth. By supporting linkages
between companies, SECO contributes to creating
opportunities both in partner countries and at home.
n Sharing investment costs for innovation: SECO
may bear some of the up-front costs to encourage
companies to engage in or focus on activities that
are likely to bring positive development outcomes,
but that are riskier, have early high investment costs
and a high risk of commercial failure, or are taking
place in a difficult environment.
n Using the private sector’s business model: Private firms improve their own working practices and
invest in new ideas or new approaches to maintain
or conquer new markets. For SECO, working with
private companies provides an opportunity to test
new business models based on the comparative
advantage of the private sector, e.g. flexibility, speed.
n Leveraging financial resources and mobilising
know-how from the private sector: A growing
number of companies are realising that engaging on
the sustainability agenda can bring short or longerterm benefits and are therefore willing to invest
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See W. Smith, How donors engage with business, ODI, July 2013, who describes some of these drivers as modalities.
SECO Approach to Partnering with the Private Sector
Why is WE partnering with the private sector?
Reduction of poverty and disparities
Sustainable growth
Integrating into
the global economy
Competitiveness
of local economies
Leverage human
and financial resources
Influence the behaviour
of enterprises
Share information
and knowledge
Linking business
Share up-front cost
for innovation
Using private sector’s
business model
© Seco
Although much of the on-going international debate is
focused on the private sector as a source of additional
financial resources for development, SECO believes that
partnering with the private sector goes further than
that. Private partnerships bring more qualitative value
by, for example, fostering innovation, encouraging the
emergence of bottom-up solutions, contributing to technology transfer, demonstrating cutting-edge ways to do
business, improving the competitiveness of local enter-
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SECO Approach to Partnering with the Private Sector
prises in partner countries or facilitating systematic market transformation. SECO is therefore actively seeking
such partnerships to increase its effectiveness and outreach. SECO is also in dialogue with the Multilateral
Development Banks (MDBs) and other international
institutions on the benefits of this approach.
2.How do we work?
n Over the years, SECO has developed several principles in working with the private sector:
n Subsidiarity: SECO will only engage with the private sector when it does not substitute funding from
other parties, including the company itself or commercial lenders. It also recognises that there are several stand-alone business initiatives or partnerships
between private firms and NGOs that do not require
contribution by public actors. In other words, SECO
will not support projects that would anyway be
undertaken or financed by the private sector.
n Additionality: SECO expects its partnering with the
private sector to make a significant contribution to
the achievement of its development goals. The collaborative arrangement has to create more added
value than would have been achieved anyway without the partnership, e.g. in terms of the project’s scale,
scope, quality or sustainability.
n Complementarity: SECO aims to identify synergies
between programmes or projects based on partnering with the private sector and other SECO activities.
For example, strengthening the framework conditions (e.g. macroeconomic stability, investment climate) helps to exploit the opportunities raised by
private partnering. Working with the private sector
can also reinforce SECO’s policy dialogue with
governments on business conditions.
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n Avoiding market distortion: SECO is aware that
partnering with a single firm may create an unfair
competitive advantage. Therefore, SECO favours
mechanisms that are based on an open application
and selection process (e.g. matching funds) or an
open procurement process to select individual firms.
SECO enters into direct partnership when the opportunity costs of such a mechanism are too high (e.g.
partnership limited in scope and time) or where such
a mechanism is not relevant.
n Assessing environmental and social risks: The
assessment of environmental and social risks is a
major component in the approval process of each
SECO project or programme. A more in-depth analysis is being made for venture capital funds, including
an extensive due diligence process.5 The objective is
to ensure that the investments comply with all applicable laws and regulations, and beyond that, require
that investments meet best practices with regard to
international environmental, social and governance
standards.
Some additional principles may exist for some specific types of partnerships (e.g. SIFEM).
See guidelines from the private company Obviam, which is tasked with managing SIFEM funds: Responsible Investment
Concept Document, OBVIAM, http://www.obviam.ch/investment-philosophy/investing-responsibly/.
SECO Approach to Partnering with the Private Sector
3. Who are SECO’s partners?
n SECO engages with various private partners, depending on the development goal that is being pursued.
Multinational or large companies have a comparative advantage in addressing global or sectoral development challenges, given their multi-country activities,
large-scale resources or broad expertise. They are better
placed to scale up and reach out to a large number of
beneficiaries. They have well established networks and
benefit from a higher visibility than smaller actors. The
risks associated with entering into a partnership with
multinational or large firms relate to their strong bargaining power and the reputational risks linked to their
higher visibility. SMEs have a comparative advantage in
tailoring specific solutions or piloting small-scale innovation adapted to the local context. Partnering with
SMEs may entail higher transaction costs due to more
limited resources to adapt to additional administrative
requirements.
SECO may also decide to enter into a partnership with a
single firm. In this case, the design of the partnership
is simpler and the planned governance arrangements
lighter. The partnership is limited in time and scope but
may be used to test innovative approaches that could
be scaled up at a later stage. The drawbacks of this
approach include: (i) the risk of creating market distortion by giving one firm an advantage; (ii) the development results achieved with one private actor are more
limited unless some scaling-up takes place. Some partnerships may involve several private actors. In such
cases, the participation of several firms is actively
sought; this facilitates the spreading of risks and costs
and enables greater outreach for the project. A multistakeholder approach includes several private companies as well as other actors, such as trade associa-
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tions, NGOs or private foundations that combine their
resources and expertise to solve a more complex issue
on a larger scale. Such a partnership is more complicated, given the variety of interests involved, but is more
likely to provide a more comprehensive solution. Issues
related to this approach include: (i) the complexity of
designing and implementing such a partnership; (ii) the
importance of governance arrangements that bring all
the actors together.
SECO is engaged in many global partnerships which
include firms from all over the world, including
Switzerland. Direct partnerships with Swiss firms are
mainly at partner-country level, especially to develop
export capacities of local firms for sustainable trade.
SECO also uses the modality of matching funds6 to specifically target the expertise of Swiss SMEs. Over the
years, SECO has found several advantages in entering
into partnerships with Swiss private companies, including: (i) the sophistication of the Swiss market, led by the
innovative demand from Swiss customers (e.g. fair trade
or organic products); (ii) specific expertise or positioning
of the Swiss industry in a sector; (iii) the proximity of the
companies facilitates the establishment of long-standing relations.
Partnerships with local private actors also offer
potential for achieving SECO’s development goal of
sustainable growth. For example, private investors in
venture capital funds are usually local banks or pension
funds from partner countries. In other cases, SECO
supports financing mechanisms that benefit local enterprises to support a transformational change.
A matching fund creates a mechanism to select individual firms that will receive a grant or a loan from the public sector to match their
own contribution. It is based on clear criteria and a due diligence process and thereby ensures transparency in the selection of each firm.
SECO Approach to Partnering with the Private Sector
4. What have we done?
n SECO has pioneered partnerships with the private
sector in many of its business lines, given that such
collaborative arrangements were seen as necessary for
reaching its development objectives. Sustainable trade
and access to finance are the two business lines where
this modality has been mostly used.
International trade supports a more efficient global division of labour, creates jobs and makes an important
contribution to poverty reduction. Demand for more
sustainable trade has increased over the years –
more environmentally friendly production methods and
better working conditions have been particularly emphasised. In response, several international or regional
initiatives have brought together producers, traders,
private companies or NGOs to define a set of agreed
standards. SECO was a founder or an early participant of
these global initiatives (e.g. Better Cotton initiative,
roundtables on responsible soy, coffee, cocoa, sustainable biomaterials) and is continuing to launch new initiatives such as the Better Gold Initiative.
The Better Gold Initiative
The Better Gold Initiative (BGI) is a partnership
between SECO and the Swiss Better Gold Association (SBGA) that aims to develop a market for gold
from certified mines respecting internationally
recognised sustainability standards. Gold from certified mines is assigned a premium, tied to better
practices and continued improvements, and spent
on sustainable development projects and community development. The BGI was started in 2013 in
Peru, with the aim of replicating it in other countries
in the near future. SECO has played a broker role in
the initiative and is, for example, supporting small
miners in producing better gold. Since inception
(less than a year ago), over 150 kilos of “better
gold” were imported to Switzerland, bringing an
additional profit (premium) of CHF 100,000 to the
Peruvian artisanal miners participating in the project.
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SECO Approach to Partnering with the Private Sector
SECO supplements this approach in sustainable trade
with some country-level projects which help smallholders
to implement the new standards set through these international initiatives or required by international buyers.
Scaling up organic and
fair-trade cocoa in Ghana
The objective of the project is to support the scalingup of the production of organic and fair-trade cocoa
in three districts in Ghana and to support the sale of
their produce via traceable value chains to market
players in the Swiss chocolate sector. The project
helps farmers improve their livelihoods in a sustainable way by adopting sustainable agroforestrybased cocoa production. A Swiss company is partner in this project. Max Felchlin AG has signed a
purchase agreement for the next five years and has
contributed with know-how for the post-harvest
process.
Lack of access to long-term investment capital is
a critical bottleneck for economic growth in developing
countries, especially for SMEs. The Swiss Investment
Fund for Emerging Markets (SIFEM AG), the Swiss development finance institution, provides long-term finance
to venture capital funds and financial institutions in
developing and emerging markets. SIFEM’s primary
focus is on institutions investing in the SME sector as
well as other fast-growing companies. An independent
evaluation of SIFEM showed that over four-fifths (82%)
of SIFEM funds have private co-investors and 95% have
public co-investors. Between 2003 and 2011, for every
US dollar that SIFEM invested, private-sector investors
invested USD 3.15. SECO is also directly involved in
some structured investment vehicles or social investment funds to further support the financing of SMEs and
has established a matching mechanism, the SECO Startup Fund (SSF), for Swiss entrepreneurs that invest in
projects in some frontier/emerging countries.
The SECO Start-up Fund (SSF)
The SECO Start-up Fund is a credit instrument that
promotes private sector investment projects in
countries with economies under development or in
transition. The projects must be commercially viable and meet recognized environmental and social
standards. An example of a project supported by
the SSF concerns the production of high-quality
milk in the Winnitska region in Ukraine. Two Swiss
agronomists and their Ukrainian partner acquired
old farm buildings and were supported by a loan
from the SECO Start-up Fund (SSF) to co-finance
the start-up phase. Today, the herd amounts to
230 cows producing 2.8 tonnes of milk a day. The
project created a total of thirty jobs and the farm
has been built around the Swiss Protection of Animals Act. The loan granted by SSF has been fully
repaid and the business is continuing to grow
steadily.
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SECO Approach to Partnering with the Private Sector
The importance of infrastructures in supporting the
development of a competitive economy and contributing to poverty reduction is widely recognised. Governments from developing countries or traditional financing
mechanisms by multilateral development banks or bilateral donors cannot respond to existing needs. SECO thus
joined up with several other donors to create the Private
Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) to mobilise
private investment. Between 2002 and 2013, PIDG leveraged US 28.71 billion in private financial resources.
SECO also participates in the Interdepartmental REPIC
Platform, which provides a central mechanism that
allows Swiss private companies (but also other actors
such as NGOs) to apply for matching grants to develop
and pilot-test business models and technology adaptation in the area of renewable energies and energy efficiency in developing countries.
PIDG: Seacom Undersea Cable –
Internet for Eastern and Southern
Africa
Without adequate, affordable and high-quality
bandwidth telecoms connections, Eastern and
Southern Africa had to resort to expensive satellite
technology, which delivered a limited service. The
high-risk, long-term loan of USD 35 million made
by the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (PIDG)
to Industrial Promotion Services (IPS) allowed IPS
to invest this in turn as equity on an exceptional
basis. This enabled the project to reach financial
close. Finally, private sector investment in this project totalled USD 375 million. By March 2011,
within two years of Seacom’s commissioning,
international and retail bandwidth costs had
reduced by 83% and 67% respectively and, less
than two years after Seacom went ‘live’, the number of Kenyan Internet users increased to 8.6 million from 3.6 million.
Finally, it should be stressed that partnering with the
private sector is not limited to bilateral donors and that
such partnerships also exists directly between multilateral development banks and private companies. For
example, both Credit Suisse and SwissRe are investing
directly in private equity funds managed by the Asian
Development Bank. UBS was a B-lender for a USD 2
million line in 2010 for the Bank Sofisa Lending Facility
(Inter-American Development Bank) in Brazil. Stadler
Rail AG established a joint venture with the Minsk
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SECO Approach to Partnering with the Private Sector
Region Executive Committee (Belarus) for the construction of a production plant for passenger trains, trams
and trolleybuses. The joint venture is supported by a senior loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development. In a project co-financed by SECO in Indonesia, Holcim signed a memorandum with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to provide technical
assistance and construction materials to potential customers of microfinance institutions supported by IFC.
5. Moving forward
n SECO is building on its vast experience in partnering
with the private sector and exploring additional opportunities for further collaboration with the private sector.
Preliminary reflections are looking at the forms of partnering as well as potential themes and include the following:
ple is the cooperation established between the World
Bank and private reinsurance companies, such as Swiss
Re or Munich Re in the context of a SECO/World
Bank partnership on financial risk management. The
objective is to increase the financial resilience of
middle-income countries to natural disasters.
Forms of partnering
n SECO is considering new innovative financing
instruments such as Development Impact Bonds
(DIB) by drawing on international experience and is
looking at the preparation of some pilot projects.
n SECO will continue to leverage private resources to
support infrastructure financing. Developing
regional or national financing mechanisms is another
emerging approach that complements the PIDG. The
EBRD/KfW/SECO Western Balkan Municipal Infrastructure Development Fund is an example of such a
regional mechanism. This fund aims to leverage public funds with additional private capital to provide
financing to utility companies and municipalities
through local commercial banks in Albania, Bosnia,
Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia.
n Matching fund is a modality that is increasingly
used by donor agencies as a means of leveraging
resources and working with the private sector. SECO
will review the experience of other donors and assess
to what extent the SECO Start-up Fund, which provides loans to SMEs, should be expanded.
n Platform approaches have the potential to address
large-scale challenges such as climate change, urbanisation and infrastructure financing. SECO is scaling
up the use of this modality for themes other than
sustainable trade in commodities (e.g. hydropower
energy or sustainable finance).
Themes
n Tackling climate change requires not only financing
but also new models and approaches. For example,
SECO is further considering the potential of insurance-based instruments to support the mitigation
of climate change effects, based on innovative programmes. The Southeastern and Central Europe Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility is a dedicated catastrophe reinsurance pool to promote the catastrophe
insurance market in Southeast Europe. Another exam-
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n Addressing the challenges of urbanisation will
require the use of different instruments and modalities as well as the involvement of many actors from
the private sector, civil society and governments.
Building on its experience with innovative financing
mechanisms and platforms, SECO will assess how to
build programmes that catalyse the resources and
expertise of all these actors.
SECO’s long experience shows that building partnerships with the private sector is the result of both systematic reflections and opportunistic moves. The key to success with such an approach is to continuously emphasise
that partnering is a means of contributing to the achievement of development objectives.
A donor concludes a contract with a service provider in which it agrees to pay the provider only for the successful outcomes of its
programme. Payment takes place after the donor has verified that pre-agreed outcomes have been achieved. Investors get their
investment back with a premium in case of higher development outcomes.
SECO Approach to Partnering with the Private Sector